Hawkin, I am fascinated with your flying box. I have only seen them used in Europe and was wondering how well they work. Could you give us more information on how you train the Adanas to the box, etc. I am trying to find an easy way to fly my Adanas. Thanks.

Steve, First,sorry I keep forgetting to sign my name,it's Nick. This is my first attempt to fly dewlaps. I've flown Oriental rollers out of the box.They were pretty easy to train to it. You can see the hinged cover ontop of the box covering the drop trap.I just put a cage ontop of the box and drop the squeaks through the hole to food (by hand at first) It doesn't take them long to figure out the routine and do it on their own. With the dewlaps I'm not using the drop hole,I'm letting them walk in the side door.We've had them out in the yard walking into the box way before they could fly.I have a stick with a plastic bag tied to it that we use to herd the birds in the door.Right now we can put them down on the lawn 20' away from the box and they hustle right in on their own. I feed them off of a bucket lid on the ground,I wave the stick/bag when I put it down (I'm hoping that will be the drop signal for the birds when they're up,think it will work?) Then move the lid into the box for the rest of their ration. Like I said,I'm new to flying dewlaps so I'd really appreciate any tips on flying them or hear what routines people are using to fly them. Thanks. Nick ps. 1st 2 squeaks from my second round hatched today.

Nick, Thanks for the great information. I am also new at flying the Adana dewlaps, so I am trying to figure out the best way to go about training them. The closest I came to the Adanas was the Aleppo dewlaps. I flew them out of a kit box and they were hard to train. Once I got them going, they were lazy fliers and slow divers. The first time I saw a flying box like the one you have was in the German flying club bulletin. Their box was portable and they flew birds from different locations. I could never figure out how that could work. I'm thinking of giving it a try. Duane Terry was the only American that I know of to fly his birds from a cupboard loft. I never heard if he had any success. Recently, I heard of a man in Alabama who is flying from cupboards and I would like to see how it is working for him. Please keep us updated on your progress with the Adanas. Thanks. Steve Klein

Steve, I wish I had the room to fly the dewlaps out of a walk in loft,but my yard is closed in tight by trees. I went to bill Jaycox's house in NY to watch him dive his Donneks. He picked 3 or 4 birds out by hand from the loft and tossed them to get them flying.Once they were up high enough he walked the rest of the birds out of the loft onto the lawn.The flying birds folded up and dove down nice. He said he used ,I think,Iranian high fliers at first to get the donneks to go up. He would toss a highflier first then a young donnek right behind it and the donnek would follow it right up.

Good to see you off to a good start. Have they been in the air yet? I have had some good dives this year, some still pull out but I still enjoy the woosh overhead. I have one who always dives into the loft.Bill

I had a good year then had some cat get in on them, not ours they know better. I do have one young bird that I watched out fly a Falcon a couple of times. Wow what a flight and dive. Also had an Owl coop up with my birds one night while we were away, we had some kids taking care of the birds. Came in the trap I think, never did kill anything. My birds have been in a very slow molt this year. They are looking good, will start pushing them up again. Bill.

I know this is an old post but had to comment,lol. I've flown Oriental Rollers,Ukrainian Skycutters,Doneks, and now Wutas from my portable.Like Nick,my yard is surrounded by trees so the only way for me to enjoy flying birds was to train them to fly from a portable loft. I am,this year, only going to be flying Wutas but hope to try out some Dewlaps later on in the year if it all works out.